Voters green light third term for Bloc’s Faille

In the Vaudreuil-Soulanges riding and across Quebec, Bloc candidates dominated the vote and spoiled Tory plans for a majority government.

In what was a closely watched Quebec riding, Bloc incumbent Meili Faille easily beat her nearest rival, Michael Fortier, when she garnered 27,044 votes, or 41.3 percent of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges vote. Fortier trailed her by a large margin, amassing 15,616 votes, or 23.8 percent of the vote.

Liberal candidate Brigitte Legault, a Vaudreuil-Soulanges resident who was running in her first federal election, gained 13,954 votes to claim 21.3 percent, while NDP candidate Maxime Héroux-Legault won 6,307, or 9.6 percent of the vote.

Green Party candidate Jean-Yves Massenet claimed 2,627 votes or 4.0 percent of votes.

According to Election’s Canada results, 65,548 of 97,188 registered electors (67.4%) turned out to vote in Vaudreuil-Soulanges on Tuesday.

Those numbers do not include electors who registered to vote on Election Day.

The results show a slight increase in voter turnout from the previous election in which 63,176 voters exercised their democratic right.

The region was closely watched across Quebec on election night largely because of the race between Fortier and Faille. Fortier had given up his Senate job to run in the riding, where he had positioned himself by setting up campaign headquarters during the past two years.

Fortier would not comment on his future after Tuesday night’s loss, which he watched on T.V. with his clearly saddened family at the Château Vaudreuil.

For her part, Faille’s press secretary said the Bloc incumbent was very happy to have re-claimed the right to represent the riding in Parliament.

This will be Faille’s third term in office since 2004.

Faille was not available for comment on Thursday as she was attending a Bloc caucus meeting and was out of the region.

Meanwhile, the Lac St. Louis riding was again won by Liberal incumbent Francis Scarpaleggia, who garnered 23,842 votes, or 46.4 percent of the vote.

Conservative Andrea Paine came in a distant second with 12,085 votes, or 23.5 percent of votes.

NDP candidate Daniel Quinn garnered 8,105 votes (15.8 percent) while 4,415 people voted for Green candidate Peter Graham (8.6 percent) and 2,953 voters (5.7 percent) cast a ballot for Bloc Québécois candidate Maxime Clément in the Lac St. Louis riding.

There were 51,400 valid ballots cast on October 14 in that region.